No sell-off target set for next fiscal

The disinvestment ministry has not recommended any divestment target to the finance ministry for 2003-04, since it does not see any merit in forecasting anything about a process that can be stalled at any point in time by anybody in the government. Disinvestment ministry officials said there is a great deal of resistance to the privatisation process from various quarters

Last year, when the privatisation of PSUs seemed to have taken off, opposition came from an unlikely quarter—Defence Minister George Fernandes. This resulted in the delay in the sale of oil PSUs. Further, Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie has repeatedly assured Parliament that the government would set up a disinvestment proceeds fund. This fund “will be used for financing fresh employment opportunities and investment, and for retirement of public fund.”

At present, the government is working on the modalities of the disinvestment fund, whether the entire proceeds or part of it should go to the fund. In such a scenario, the finance ministry can either fix the same divestment target as last year, or go for a higher one, that is, Rs 16,000 crore. For, the Planning Commission has fixed a divestment target of Rs 78,000 crore for the Tenth Plan (2002-07), which translates into Rs 15,600 crore each year.